Behemoth weapon versus Graviton weapon

Stealth_C^

Spaceman
Out of curiousity, why would Confed construct the Behemoth when they could likely have constructed their own graviton weapon ala the KIS Sivar in a much, much smaller warship? The graviton weapon would be sufficient to crush everything on the planet's surface. Why did Confed risk the resources of building such a large vessel, the extra resources for R&D, etc?
 
The weapon on the Sivar was capable of destroying the Goddard colony, but nothing the size of a planet. The Behemoth on the other hand, was designed to blow Kilrah into pieces with a single shot. Blowing Kilrah apart with the Behemoth would have had the same impact that the Temblor bomb attack did - ending the war. Had they just used their version of the Sivar weapon, there most likely would have been a lot of destruction (assuming the ship carrying the weapon wasn't destroyed while recharging after the first shot), but nothing on the scale of what it would take to make the Kilrathi surrender.

Plus, the PTC on the Confederation-class dreadnoughts were based on Confed's research into the Sivar's weapon, and they had a rather nasty tendency to...um...explode.
 
The information available on the graviton weapon states it raises the planets gravity 137 fold. It doesn't say a small part of the planet. Also, even if for some reason it didnt work, they could have used the same weaponry the Kilrathi wanted to use in the Battle of Earth (an even cheaper alternative).
 
There's some question as to the size of the Sivar - there are three very different sizes given for the ship.

Still, we're not entirely sure what the general effect of the Proton Accelerator Gun was... Goddard was a small colony (250,000 people) - and the weapon left buildings standing.
 
Something the other guy already has (and has used) isn't a very effective terror weapon, though - I think the key to the Behemoth was that it was something the Kilrathi couldn't hope to mach (literally destroying the planet).

It's like World War II (Wing Commander like World War II!? No!) - the atom bomb ended the war because of what it implied we could do, not because of what it did (it was no more effective than fire bombing).
 
George Washington approves of Graviton weapons over BFGs of Doom. He does not approve of making 8 foot tall cats implode, however.
 
t.c.cgi said:
George Washington approves of Graviton weapons over BFGs of Doom. He does not approve of making 8 foot tall cats implode, however.

George Washington wouldn't, but would Benedict Arnold?
 
GeeBot said:
I thought Benedict Arnold lived to see another day.

Not in Joshua's reality. Remember, George Washington invented Blackfuel and captured 7-foot tall Kilrathi who usually would rather die than be held captive, and who would then convince OTHER Kilrathi to surrender.

Gods knows what the Bugs would've done.
 
Who's this arnold?
didn't know the Sivar PTC was a graviton gun. is it in WC1SO somewhere? Never played very far into it.
 
Benedict Arnold was a famous traitor during the American revolution.

The 'graviton gun' is the Sivar's Proton Accelerator Gun. The one it used to destroy Goddard.
 
Yeah, I understood that part about it being the Sivar's gun. It just didn't know it was a graviton thing. Where did they say it was, is there another source apart from the WC1SM1 manual?
 
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